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by emdash90



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eventual Smut, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, I don't know how we got here, Interior design fic, Slow Burn, This was supposed to be a one-shot for Fixy's birthday
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21538177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emdash90/pseuds/emdash90
Summary: The interior design slow-burn romcom AU literally no one asked for.OR!Newly single and (begrudgingly) ready to mingle, Eve trudges her way through the unspectacular world of online dating as she takes on an 8-week interior design reno with Konstantin's niece at the helm.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 73
Kudos: 290





	1. Swipe Right

**Author's Note:**

> K let me start off by saying that this is absolute insanity.
> 
> This prompt is courtesy of my pal, my homegirl, Fixy, who was expecting to get a one-shot for her birthday, but I lost my mind somewhere in my planning and accidentally turned this into a 20-chapter slow burn? 
> 
> EITHER WAY. Happy birthday to one of my faves. First chapter's for you.
> 
> Also if you are the only person in the world who hasn't read her stuff, turn around and go do that now 'cause she's the best.

“...with all of that, you will probably be looking at an eight-week timeline. Maybe 12. Maximum 12.”

“Mm.” 

Eve’s absent hum tickled her throat, her mind elsewhere as she drummed her fingers against the arm of her chair. 

Her gaze was held by the heavy, late autumn rain that beat against wall-to-wall windows and the London-grey canvas of cement buildings disappearing into a pillowy blanket of fog. She fought a chill at the thought of pedestrians in the streets below, all rushing to find cover, and she was thankful to have  _ just  _ escaped the deluge of frigid drops that pelted the city from above.

She needed a vacation. 

Or a vat of gin.

She was just so goddamn sick of the rain.

“Eve?”

Konstantin’s questioning voice drew Eve’s attention from the cold, dreary view from the man’s chic Notting Hill office, his features warm and smiling — as if she would ever find any other look on his bearded face.

Eve grinned in apology and crossed one leg over the other, returning her focus to her dear friend.

“Eight weeks,” she echoed with a nod. “That’s fine by me.”

“Maybe 12. Maximum 12.”

“Still faster than it takes to get a divorce in this country.”

The sound of Konstantin’s belly laugh bounced off the glass and concrete walls of his minimalist office as he leaned back in his chair, hands folded over the dark fabric of his button shirt.

“I promise this will be good for you, Eve. I’m setting you up with my best designer.”

“Your niece?”

The white-haired man nodded, and his dark eyes glimmered with a wicked fondness he saved for his daughter and the mysterious niece he’d adopted years ago. 

“She is very annoying but very talented. She’ll give you exactly what you need.”

And of that Eve had no doubt.

Konstantin’s boutique interior design firm had always held a high reputation across the continent. But it was his niece’s work — featured in magazines around the world — that kept the Vasiliev Interiors calendar booked solid for three years in advance.

He was kind of doing Eve a favour.

“I’m just ready for a change.”

Konstantin’s smirk grew as he pulled a pair of heavy-bottomed glasses and a half-empty bottle of Edradour 22 from the cabinet behind him. He slid two fingers of single malt across the smooth, steel surface of his isosceles desk and raised his tumbler in a toast.

“To change. And to finalized divorces.”

Eve clinked her crystal against his with a sigh of relief before muttering into her glass. 

“Thank the fucking lord.”

**//**

“Eve, look at me?”

“Wh—Jesus, Elena, what the hell?”

Eve threw a hand in front of her face when a blinding light flashed from her best friend’s phone as the woman stepped into Eve’s cramped office. 

It was a far cry from Notting Hill and the effortlessly swanky décor Eve had stepped out from (only  _ slightly  _ buzzed _ )  _ not two hours before. Stacks of paper and folders towered over her from almost every square inch of space, ready to topple over her desk and onto the floor at the first solid gust of wind to breeze through the six by eight-foot room. 

And she would have happily given up the sliver of privacy she was allotted as Managing Editor of The Journal’s crimes section to dive back into the chaos of the bullpen. 

She missed it every day. 

Eve was rubbing her eyes in an attempt to wipe the white and blue rectangle from her blinded vision when Elena collapsed into the rickety chair on the other side of Eve’s cluttered desk. Her eyes were glued to her phone as her thumbs tapped furiously against the glass screen.

“You know there are zero good photos of you on the Internet? The last time you updated your Facebook profile was in 2009, and that was to say ‘Eve Polastri is  _ so hungry _ , exclamation point.’” 

“Why are you looking for pictures of me on the Internet?”

Elena glanced up from the small device, eyes wide, thumbs hovering above the digital keyboard. 

“Hello, how  _ else  _ are you going to bag your inaugural Tinder fitty as a newly single lady?” She waved a hand as if it were the most obvious thing in the world before resuming her mad typing.

Her what?

“My what?”

Elena grunted, lips pursed in disapproval. 

“Mm, see, this just won’t do.” 

She turned her phone to show Eve the photo she had snapped moments before, and — good lord — was that what she looked like? Mouth gaping, eyebrows raised, one eye squinted shut, neck scrunched as she hunched over the file on her desk? 

Eve was about to open her mouth to speak when Elena’s eyes flashed and she pounded her feet against the carpeted floor in excitement. 

“Let’s try for something a little more enigmatic, yeah? Can we lose the—” she gestured vaguely toward Eve’s torso and her loose-fitting cardigan — “whatever that is?”

Eve pinched the bridge of her nose to fight away the migraine brought on by several fingers of scotch and no lunch to speak of. Perhaps day-drinking on an empty stomach hadn’t been the wisest idea.

“I’m not going on Tinder. My  _ divorce  _ was just finalized this morning.”

“All the more reason to get out there, babe. You and Niko have been separated for, what, two years?” 

“Almost three,” Eve mumbled with her palm smooshed against her cheek, elbow resting on the worn wooden desk. 

She’d needed to wait until they had been separated for two years before she could file for divorce.

Two. Years.

Sure, her contact with Niko had been kept to a minimum during that time, but that didn’t change the fact that he lingered in her headspace, a legal anvil tethering her to the bottom of the sea until a certificate of divorce had been signed, sealed, and delivered. 

But she couldn’t be angry with him.

It wasn’t his fault she couldn’t love him like she thought she could. Wasn’t his fault that she took his love for smothering and his gentle grounding for captivity. 

Fifteen years. 

And she’d been miserable for almost all of them.

“Okay, so three years,” Elena pretended to mull this information over with a finger tapping against her chin. “And when was the last time you had sex?”

Eve groaned. 

“How long, Eve?”

No one needed to know that. 

Eve could hardly remember herself. 

“It’s been a while.”

Elena softened, though her excited grin remained intact. 

“So it’s settled. We’re getting you laid.”

Eve wasn’t ready for a relationship. 

But Elena didn’t seem to think that mattered.

“Well,” she smirked, leaning over the desk to place both hands over Eve’s. “It’s a good thing you don’t need to sign a marriage license to bang someone, isn’t it?”

**//**

“...and so that’s when my third wife left me.”

She was going to kill Elena.

Eve forced a tight-lipped smile and reached for her nearly empty wine glass, desperate for some kind of relief.

“That must have been so...hard for you.”

Sex wasn’t worth this.

“It was alright,” Colin shrugged and shovelled a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. “What about you? Are you still young enough to, you know—” he waved his cutlery toward Eve’s midsection, and she considered grabbing her own fork and jamming it into his trachea. 

She didn’t want to have to resort to violence on her first date in almost 15 years, but she wasn’t above it if push came to shove.

“Come on, babe, it’ll be fun,” Elena had nudged her with a wink days before. “Go out, meet some new people. Back in the saddle and all that, hey?”

And Eve was having  _ so much  _ bloody fun. 

“Actually, would you excuse me for a minute?” 

She didn’t wait for him to respond before making a beeline for the bathroom.

_ Hi, you’ve reached Elena. I’m either busy or ignoring you. Or busy ignoring you. Leave it at the beep. _

With her phone to her ear, Eve paced the length of the black-tiled restroom, her free hand grabbing a fistful of dark curls from the back of her head.

“Elena, please call me back, I need you to get me the hell out of here,” she groaned into her mobile. “Say that my house is on fire or something. I don’t know. Anything.” 

Eve disconnected the line and slid the device into the back pocket of her dark jeans, bringing her hands to rest against the edge of the granite countertop. She let the weight of her body fall to her wrists, stretching her back and rolling her neck from side to side. 

The entire thing was a terrible idea. 

She wasn’t ready. 

Not for a relationship. Not to be suffocated once again after she’d taken her first breath of fresh air in years. And not for dates — good or bad.

“What a fucking mistake,” she muttered to her reflection. 

The flush of a toilet from the far end of the bathroom startled Eve, who jumped at the sound. She hadn’t even realized there was someone else in there with her when she had slammed the door shut with her back and tapped the name at the top of her contact list.

Eve cleared her throat as the stall door clicked open and offered the stranger a polite, if not awkward smile through the mirror as the woman crossed the small space to the sink next to her.

The woman’s eyes — hazel and bright — sparkled, knowing, as she held Eve’s gaze through their reflection. 

“Bad date?” the slender, blonde woman asked with a brow arched in teasing sympathy, her words rolled in what Eve was sure to be a Russian accent. 

She’d spent several months in Moscow covering the 2000 election with Carolyn Martens, her colleague and now Editor-in-Chief of The Journal’s news division, who had introduced her to Konstantin all those years ago. 

“You have no idea,” Eve snorted in derision, running her hands through her wild hair. 

Would he notice if she simply walked out of the restaurant and didn’t look back? Would she care if he did?

The blonde smirked at her through the glass before reaching for a paper towel to dry her hands, leaning with her back to the sink just a few feet away from where Eve stood.

She turned her head to look at Eve as she ran the towel slowly over her hands and through her fingers, and Eve was frozen, staring past her own reflection as she watched the woman study her profile, intrigued. 

She was absolutely gorgeous. With her dark blonde hair falling past her shoulders, and her runway-ready chiffon blouse and floral-print flared pants, and the natural pout of her lips as they parted just so, Eve doubted this woman needed to use technology to find a date. 

She wondered if she was on a date now, and if she was, could they even hold a candle to the woman they were sat across from? 

She doubted it. 

Eve cleared her throat again, unsure of what to do or where to look, though she certainly couldn’t seem to pull her eyes away from the stunning stranger in the mirror. 

“Well, I should probably let you get back out there,” was Eve’s lame attempt to fill the tense silence. 

“I suppose so,” the blonde hummed, her eyes shining with mischief. “I hope that your date gets better,” she added as she tossed the crumpled paper towel into the bin on the wall.

“I think I’m just going to have to grin and bear it,” Eve chuckled in defeat, and gathered her hair from the nape of her neck, ready to pull it into a thick ponytail, when the stranger called from the door, fingers wrapped around its handle. 

“Wear it down,” she murmured, her eyes meeting Eve’s once more. The corners of her lips twitched, and the blonde pulled open the bathroom door then stepped out into the cacophony of restaurant chatter and clatter that spilt into the quiet room.

**//**

“I just don’t see why anyone would choose to stay in journalism in this day and age. Why waste your time in a dying industry?”

It hadn’t gotten any better. 

Not that Eve couldn’t have predicted that on her own.

She’d been back at the table for less than 10 minutes, cringing as she watched her date shovel heaping forkful after heaping forkful of food into his mouth, not bothering to chew or swallow as he continued his one-sided conversation. 

And her phone remained woefully silent all the while. 

_ Thanks for fucking nothing, Elena. _

Eve was taking a long, frustrated sip of water when Colin was interrupted by the lilt of a Southeast British accent. 

“So sorry to interrupt,” the woman said with a cautious hand on Eve’s shoulder, and Eve all but choked on her beverage when she realized who that hand belonged to.

With a staff apron covering what Eve assumed to be ridiculously expensive pants, Eve’s bathroom bud, the honey blonde stranger she’d stared at through a mirror, stood above her with an apologetic grin as a half-hearted mask to the mirth in her eyes.

“Um, yes?” Eve asked, finally managing a painful swallow. 

“We just received a call at the front desk from an, erm—” 

“Elena?” Eve offered. She was very helpful.

“Yes, Elena,” the blonde nodded gratefully. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, but she told me that your house was on fire? She said she tried to reach you but your mobile went straight to voicemail.” 

Eve feigned a panicked expression, jumping from her chair in exclamation and startling the couple at the neighbouring table.

“Hang on just a minute,” Colin interrupted their skit, pointing his fork at the worried  _ waitress. _ “Didn’t I see you sitting two tables down over there?”

“Oh, you must have me mistaken,” the woman shook her head in apology. “I guess I just have one of those faces!”

Eve could confirm that she didn’t. 

The blonde’s polite giggle was cut short when her focus returned to Eve, face serious, eyes wide and shining. She put her hand on Eve’s arm and squeezed.

“You should probably go.”

“I should probably go,” Eve agreed with a smile. She turned back to her date, whose eyebrows were knotted in sceptical confusion as his eyes jumped from Eve to the waitress and back. “I should probably go,” she echoed without a trace of apology in her voice.

She didn’t bother to make eye contact with Colin as she gathered her coat and her purse, swinging both over her arm in a hurry. 

“Thanks for this,” she breathed to the blonde. 

“Any time,” the woman and her date responded in unison, and neither Eve nor the blonde fought their eye roll as they grinned at each other. 

Eve would most definitely pay this forward.

Without another word, Eve raced out of the restaurant and onto the street, embracing the cold rush of fresh November air against her cheeks.

And as she strode past the building, she chanced a final glance through the eatery’s large front window just in time to watch the blonde tossing her untied apron into Eve’s vacant chair with a smirk before dropping gracefully into her seat. 

Two tables down.


	2. Tequila Whore

Villanelle sighed, deep and content, lost in a luxurious cloud of bergamot and sweet orange steam that filled every breath of space between glass and subway-tiled shower walls.

She rolled her neck as a stream of hot water cascaded over her shoulders and down her back, melting away the tension of a hectic, hellish day. 

Her morning and afternoon were spent directing the crew of movers that carried piece after piece of designer furniture into the Kensington flat she’d been calling home since a spontaneous move from Paris to London not two weeks prior.

Villanelle _hated_ unpacking. She saw little point in complicating her life with the logistics of a cross-channel move when she could simply leave everything behind and rebuild her life into whatever she wanted from scratch — _without_ the hassle of boxes and packing tape.

She’d landed at Heathrow with nothing but her essentials housed in Louis Vuitton suitcases that rolled alongside her in either hand. 

Her black and gold Chloé riding jacket? Essential.

Her cherry Kwaidan Editions wide-leg pants? Essential.

Her signature, namesake fragrance from a rare French perfumer? Unquestionably essential.

The rest of her belongings were left behind in a Quartier Pigalle apartment after a lease transfer and a hasty exit, and she didn’t feel bad about it. Because as much as she loved everything about Paris and the life she’d built over the last three years, the city had become stifling in a hurry. 

Her uncle’s offer of a series of London-side projects was just the kind of distraction she needed, and it had come at the perfect time.

With a final, relaxed sigh, Villanelle turned off the water and stepped out of her shower, wrapping herself in a fluffy, Egyptian cotton towel, still warm from the dryer. She pampered her skin with expensive French moisturizers (also essential) and pulled her damp, dark blonde tresses into a bun before finding her way to her newly furnished kitchen and living space.

Her new digs could not have been more different from the Paris apartment she loved so much. 

She’d traded ornate fixtures for clean lines, closed rooms for an open-concept blueprint, and weathered, shabby-chic walls for a brilliant white that would brighten the dreary London overcast that hung in the sky in perpetuity. 

Still, the high ceilings, herringbone hardwood, generous floor plan, and garden-view were a far cry from slumming it, and she had her uncle to thank for getting her set up in such a gorgeous space on such short notice.

It paid to own one of the most successful interior design firms in Europe.

Villanelle settled onto her plush, sapphire mid-century sofa with a bowl of pasta and queued up an episode of her latest Netflix binge on the television above her crown-moulded fireplace. She was enjoying a bite of pan-roasted mushroom and one of her favourite contestant’s catty confessional when she was interrupted by her phone chiming from its spot on the arm of the couch.

Villanelle cast a disinterested glance at the ringing device and rolled her eyes at the sight of a familiar Paris number she’d been ignoring for weeks. An indifferent swipe to the left of the screen was all it took to silence the incoming call.

She wasn’t in the mood to deal with boring nonsense.

Not that she would ever be. 

She was mid-chew, her mouth full of morel and farfalle when her ringtone sounded again — this time from a different, local number — earning a second eye roll at the unwanted disturbance. 

Villanelle swiped right and brought the phone to her ear. 

“H’vlo?” she answered with her mouth still full of pasta.

“You know, one day you will choke on all of that food you shove in your mouth and I will not visit you in the hospital.”

“Oh, please,” Villanelle retorted with a heavy swallow. “You would miss me. You like me too much.”

Her uncle grunted on the other end of the line; _I love you_ in Russian.

“How are you settling in? Do you have everything you need?”

“I’m fine,” Villanelle responded, tickled by Konstantin’s grumpy affection. “Are you calling just for chit chat or is there a reason you are interrupting my dinner? I’m in the middle of a very good episode of Instant Hotel.”

The pretentious, retired couple that had been sneering down at their competitors’ homes were getting ripped apart for having the tackiest, most cringe-inducing design aesthetic of the lot, and justice was finally being served. 

It was very satisfying.

“I just wanted to remind you—” 

“— not to be late for your appointment tomorrow,” Villanelle finished with Konstantin in unison in a deep, mocking voice. “Why do you doubt me so much? Have I ever been late for an appointment?”

“No.”

“Have I ever _missed_ an appointment?”

“No.”

“Have I ever delivered anything less than sensational work?”

A sigh came from the other end of the line.

“No.”

“Then why do you insist on reminding me about this nothing project every time we speak?”

“It is not nothing. This is a very important project for a very good friend.”

Villanelle snorted. She sincerely doubted the Fulham, cookie-cutter condo would do much to hold her interest.

Twenty-eight years old and with already so much award-winning work under her Gucci belt, Villanelle had built quite the impressive portfolio since graduating from Florence Design Academy and joining Vasiliev Interiors to work with her uncle. Some of her latest undertakings — an 8,400 square foot villa in Tuscany, a penthouse flat in Vienna, a venture capital-funded tech startup office in Bulgaria — were the kind of career-defining projects she’d grown so used to digging her heels into on a regular basis.

Small, insignificant projects, like the one for Konstantin’s ‘very good’ friend, were a waste of her talent.

“Since when do you have friends?”

“Funny,” her uncle deadpanned. “Don’t be late tomorrow. Or else I’ll —”

“— make Hugo your shadow for a month,” Villanelle finished again with a smile, only half-annoyed.

She didn’t need to see the man to know he’d be standing with one hand on his hip, the other pointing a fat, stern finger at nothing in particular to try to make himself look intimidating. 

It never worked. 

“Yes, Konstantin, I _know_.”

“Good. Get some rest, then.”

“Mhm. Goodnight, old man.”

**//**

“I don’t know why I listen to you,” Eve shouted over the blare of some remixed pop song that bled through the speakers of the trendy bar Elena had dragged her to for after-work drinks. 

The place was surprisingly packed for a Tuesday evening, and Eve had watched with mild guilt as her best friend elbowed past a pair of scantily-clad 20-somethings to snag the last high table. 

“Babe, I am so sorry,” Elena placed a hand on Eve’s arm with a mischievous grin that landed closer to amusement than it did to an apology.

“Uh-huh,” Eve grunted into her sweating glass, half-melted ice cubes tumbling against her lips with a clink as she drained the last of her gin and tonic. 

“To be fair,” Elena continued, “the warning signs were there. The profile. The messages. You just ignored them.”

“Hang on,” Eve held up a hand, eyes narrowed. “How do you know what his messages said?” She groaned when Elena’s wicked smile turned ever so slightly sheepish. “Are you still logged into my account?”

She made a swipe for the other woman’s phone on the other side of the round bar table, but Elena beat her to the punch, holding her iPhone just out of reach with a smirk on her face.

“Well, what do you want from me? Work is _boring_.”

“Oh, I’m glad my pathetic dating life can be your source for entertainment,” Eve grouched, turning in her seat to hunt down their waitress. She needed another drink.

“Um, you can hardly call being rescued by hot mystery women you meet in the loo pathetic. That is some romance novel shit.”

Eve’s cheeks warmed at the thought of the gorgeous, exceptionally dressed stranger who’d saved her from England’s least charming bachelor three days earlier. 

Not that Eve had spent much of that time thinking about her. 

But it was fun to remember.

She liked how that woman had looked at her in a way that was so unlike how anyone ever had ever looked at her before. Not even by the man to whom she’d spent nearly two decades bound in holy matrimony. 

Niko’s eyes had tracked her every move with selfishness, with suffocating neediness. _Not_ with the curiosity and intrigue and countless other unidentifiable but nowhere near unwelcome things with which her bright-eyed stranger looked at her.

But she didn’t think about that.

“I never said she was hot.”

“Oh, come off it. It was all over your face! She was bangin’.” Elena chuckled gleefully as Eve buried her face in her hands. “You should have asked for her number. Maybe she could be the one to get you —” 

“Shut up,” Eve knocked her friend’s head to the side playfully. “And like that would happen. If I’ve ever met someone who’s so far out of my league, it’s —” she imagined the blonde’s striking features, her glittering smirk, her cost-what-you-make-in-a-year outfit “— whoever _that_ was.”

It was Elena’s turn to give Eve a playful nudge, though the younger woman’s shove came with an added dose of gusto no thanks to the margarita she’d inhaled. 

“Impossible. Eve, you are beautiful and smart and sexy and I promise people will line up around the bloody block to date you. It’s already happening.” Elena waved her phone at her with a grin. “I’ve seen the messages.”

Eve felt her own phone vibrate against the varnished, dark wood table and quickly scooped up the device to draft a response to the email that had just come through with a canny ping.

“Oh, no. No.” Elena grabbed Eve’s phone out of her typing grasp and dropped it into her black leather purse. “None of that tonight.” Eve opened her mouth to protest, but Elena wouldn’t have it. “Nope, tonight we are forgetting about work and internet dates and mysterious toilet hotties, and we are just going to have fun.”

Eve’s objections were interrupted yet again when a tray-carrying bartender stopped at their table to ask if he could interest them in free shooters to promote a new tequila.

“Hell yes, you can,” Elena whooped, grabbing three shot glasses with each hand. “Come back with more.” She waved the bartender away and pushed half of her loot across the table toward Eve.

“I’m pretty sure he was only offering us one apiece,” Eve said as she watched the server retreat with a confused frown.

Elena shrugged indifferently. 

“You should know me by now, babe,” she grinned over the rim of her first shot glass. “I am an absolute _whore_ for tequila. Now drink up.”

Eve knocked back the clear liquid with a grimace as her best friend watched on, proud. 

It was sometime after their third shot, when they were drunkenly giggling over the tale of Colin’s face as the blonde stranger dropped back into her seat, that Eve wondered just how nosy Elena had been while perusing her Tinder account.

“Wait, so, if you’re still logged in to my account,” Eve began, swaying slightly on her barstool, “does that mean you saw all the dick pics?”

Dating had certainly changed since the last time she’d been single. 

In 15 years of marriage, she’d never received quite as many photos of various genitalia as she had in the last 7 days.

Who responded to a simple hello with a picture of their — 

Well, _a lot_ of people, apparently. 

Elena nodded solemnly before snorting into her drink, fresh from the bar. 

“Oh, honey,” she cackled through watery eyes, “I have seen _all_ the dick pics.”

**//**

“Oh god, I’m dying,” Eve groaned, face down on the couch in her small home office, its cushion wet with drool. 

After stumbling home very, _very_ drunk, Eve had had the bright idea to try to get ahead for the following day by burning the midnight oil. 

Judging by the way she’d woken up — still dressed in her slacks and cream blouse and half-hanging off the IKEA loveseat she’d pushed into her study where she spent most of her time when she was home — she didn’t make it very far.

Eve’s stomach turned with a sickening jolt at the memory of the night before. Of an innocent gin and tonic followed by three shots of tequila that preceded two of what she _thought_ she remembered Elena calling liquid cocaine.

She didn’t often think of the 10-year age gap that separated herself and her 34-year-old best friend, but she doubted the woman would be suffering quite as much as she was.

Eve pulled the knit blanket from the back of the sofa over her head with a weak whine, ready to drift back to sleep to quell the nausea and splitting headache, when the sound of her doorbell sent her bolting upright on the couch in a panic.

She blinked heavily as her head spun and stomach made an awful, gurgling sound, and she scrambled down the hallway with a hand through her hair. 

_The designer. Her appointment. Fuck._

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” she muttered, nowhere near prepared to receive anyone, let alone Konstantin’s very successful, very well to do niece she’d be meeting for the first time — reeking of alcohol.

“Just a minute!” Eve tossed a frantic shout toward the front door after the bell sounded for a second time, hoping that the stranger waiting on the other side would hear her. 

Eve raced into the bathroom for a rushed swish of Listerine around her cottonmouth to banish the lingering taste of alcohol, no time to deal with the wild nest of hair that sat on her head.

She was smoothing her hands over slept-in clothes when she made it back down the hall to receive her caller.

“Hi, I’m so sorry about the wait, I —” Eve stopped herself as she pulled the door open to reveal the person standing on her doorstep. “Oh.”

Bathroom hottie.

God, that was a terrible moniker.

“Oh,” the blonde woman echoed, dressed in pleated trousers and a drawstring trench coat, hazel eyes sparkling in surprise under the mid-morning sun. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Eve breathed, half-hidden behind a wooden barrier. She would have preferred to slam the door and hide her dishevelled self under her blankets and away from this woman who’d shown up at her house looking like she’d gotten lost walking off a runway.

But here she was, standing on Eve’s doorstep, with an eyebrow raised and her now-familiar smirk teasing from the small, covered porch.

The blonde broke the silence and extended her hand. “I’m —” 

“Villanelle,” Eve answered for her and she accepted the woman’s proffered hand, her skin warm in the cold November air. “Konstantin’s niece. I’m —”

“Eve.” Villanelle’s smile grew as their eyes remained locked. “Konstantin’s friend.”

With their hands still joined, suspended between them, Villanelle took in Eve’s appearance with an amused grin, the laughter behind her eyes unmistakable. 

Eve cleared her throat.

“Sorry about this,” she gestured to her unkempt clothes and untamed hair. “Bit of a late night.”

“Another date?” Villanelle offered with a snicker. 

“Oh, god, no. I was out with a friend.”

“Elena?”

“You remember that?”

“Eve, I don’t see how I could ever forget that,” Villanelle chuckled, leaning against the iron railing that lined the stoop. “It made my evening.”

Eve coughed, sheepish, clapping her hands uselessly against the sides of her thighs. 

“So, you’re here to redesign my house.”

“That is the reason why I’m standing on your doorstep, yes.” 

“Right.” Eve moved from behind the door with her arm extended into the front hall. “Would you like to come inside, then?”

Villanelle stepped into the mudroom with a grin and motioned Eve forward. 

“Lead the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was brought to you by the job that allows me to sit cute and write fic in the many hours of downtime. 
> 
> get at me on twitter @emdash_90 where I mostly complain about writer's block


	3. Absolut Inte

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last update before the holidays, yeah?
> 
> Thank you all SO MUCH for all your love and kind words for the first two chapters. I hope you all love this one as much as I do. I've got big plans for these two.
> 
> Happy holidays!

“Did you just move in?”

They were standing in the middle of Eve’s sparsely furnished living room in her two-story Fulham flat, among stacks of ambiguously labelled boxes.

_ Paper things. _

_ Miscellaneous. _

_ Old stuff.  _

A rolled-up beige and brown carpet was propped against the wall. A worn, lonely armchair that matched the IKEA loveseat in her office sat in the corner. 

The walls were barren; there were no photos, no artwork — no real proof the flat was occupied by anyone other than a ghost.

“Er,” Eve blushed. Villanelle had at least been gracious enough to let Eve slip away to change out of her crumpled clothing and fluff her curls into place. “Two and a half years ago.”

“Eve,” Villanelle scolded, appalled. “How could you live here for two and a half years with barely any furniture? Without unpacking?”

“I… haven’t had a lot of time?”

Eve supposed that had been her own fault.

Before her separation, when things with Niko had been exceptionally bleak, Eve threw herself completely into her job, earning herself a promotion to Managing Editor, a cramped office, and a bad habit of answering emails at all hours of the night as a result of all of her hard work.

Somewhere along the way, she’d forgotten how to take a break. 

And everything else in her life suffered for it.

“Is every room as minimalist as this one?” Villanelle asked with raised, mocking eyebrows, chewing her upper lip to cover a smirk.

“Well, my office has a little bit more going on.”

Eve’s cheeks remained red as she led Villanelle down the hall to her study, the most frequented room in her house.

Yes — even more than her bedroom.

Yes — she knew that was sad.

Though it was certainly more spacious than the windowless broom closet she called home during business hours, there were a lot of similarities between Eve’s home and work offices in that they were both cluttered and chaotic, with paper and folders covering almost every conceivable surface. 

There were a tonne of books in piles around the room in addition to the ones that lined two teetering Billy bookcases. A vintage typewriter — her dad’s — sat on the corner of her desk. Her university degree from Goldsmiths University of London, her first press pass, and her first published article at The Journal from 1999 were in black frames on the wall.

Villanelle walked around the room — the only one that offered a shred of personality — with a small smile, and Eve scratched her temple as she watched the designer run a finger over the spine of a hardcover, along the edge of Eve’s desk.

“Are you a writer?”

“A journalist. Well. An editor, now.”

“Do you like it?” Villanelle asked, flipping through a dilapidated paperback Oxford dictionary Eve had had since high school.

Villanelle didn’t seem shy about touching other people’s things. 

And Eve wasn’t sure why that didn’t surprise her.

“Sure,” was her noncommittal response. She was very aware of the way Villanelle’s eyes followed her around the room.

Intense. Curious.

Not unlike the way she’d stared at her through the bathroom mirror the night Villanelle had rescued her from her god awful date.

“But not as much as writing,” Villanelle commented.

It wasn’t a question.

“I guess not,” Eve mused, toying with her fingers as she leaned against the arm of her sofa. “I miss it sometimes.”

“What do you miss about it?”

Eve shrugged. What didn’t she miss?

“Being in the field? Throwing myself into research? Talking to people? Finding the story and all that?” Eve chuckled with another shrug, her smile wistful. “I guess I miss a lot. It’s mostly just people and deadline management, now.”

Villanelle’s hum was thoughtful, her eyes still boring into Eve’s with a whisper of a grin over her lips. And Eve forced herself to blink, to look away for just a moment, scratching the prickle of heat at the nape of her neck.

“So,” she cleared her throat, eager to stop talking about herself, though she surmised that was the entire point of this initial consultation. That was probably why Villanelle was asking so many questions. “Do you want to see anything else?”

“That depends,” Villanelle smirked, pushing herself off the edge of the desk she’d been leaning against. “What else would you like to show me, Eve?”

“Uh, well,” Eve fumbled, the blush in her cheeks back with a vengeance. She held open the door of the closet at the far end of her study and motioned to a dozen-odd boxes of varying heights and widths — some tall and thin, others short and wide. “I got all of this from IKEA ages ago but never took the time to put any of it together.”

Villanelle stepped closer to peek into the packed closet with wide eyes.

“Oh, Eve,” she sighed with a slow shake of her head, horrified. “Absolutely  _ not _ .”

**//**

Villanelle was spinning in her grey, leather executive chair, sighing into the ceiling with her head against the high back of the seat. 

She was  _ bored _ .

Sure, she had plenty of things to cross off her to-do list; bids to review, mockups to finalize, estimates to prepare, etcetera. 

But none of that interested Villanelle.

Not when her mind was elsewhere.

She slid over to her parallelogram glass desk and tapped the keyboard to wake her Macbook from its hibernation. A few seconds and a name typed into a Google search later found Villanelle digging her teeth into her bottom lip as she scrolled through endless results for “Eve Polastri + London.”

There were hundreds of articles dating back to the early 2000s. A Linkedin profile. An out-of-date Facebook page that seemed to have been neglected for most of the last decade. 

And Villanelle couldn’t help her spreading grin as she clicked through them all with her chin in her hand.

Eve was  _ interesting _ , to say the least. Not what Villanelle had expected. 

Granted, she hadn’t known to expect anything from a chance meeting in a restaurant toilet with a complete stranger.

An attractive one. 

An intriguing one. 

But a stranger just the same.

Seeing Eve again was a pleasant surprise. The wild-haired woman had been a bright spot in an otherwise mundane evening Villanelle had spent getting caught up with an old classmate that had been a complete waste of her time.

She couldn’t explain why she’d been bowled over by Eve the way she was that night.

Maybe it was her amazing hair, or her wry, self-deprecating smile, or that hint of something behind her dark, curious eyes that seemed to long for more of… everything.

And that made Villanelle want to know more, learn more about Eve and her chaotic little life.

She smirked at Eve’s latest headshot, where her hair was tragically tamed in a high bun, her face blank, and Villanelle wondered how someone so captivating could look so disenchanted. 

“What are you doing?” Konstantin’s scolding voice startled her from the doorway, and Villanelle didn’t know how he’d managed to sneak up to her without making a sound.

The man was not light on his feet.

She slammed the lid of her laptop with an innocent smile. 

“Making you money?”

Konstantin narrowed his eyes, his hands on his hips.

“You look guilty.”

“Who, me?” Villanelle batted her lashes with both hands folded under her chin. “I’m an angel.”

“Ha,” Konstantin barked as he dropped into the empty chair across from her. “How was your appointment with Eve?”

Villanelle chewed away a grin with a roll of her eyes.

“She has a closet full of IKEA furniture.”

Her uncle’s deep, belly laugh rang off cement walls and Villanelle glared at the man who had assigned her a project that would be nothing but a test on her patience.

Sure, she liked Eve.

But Jesus, did she have awful taste.

“Not every project is going to end up being a six-page feature in Vogue Living.” 

“They should be,” Villanelle huffed, sulking in her chair with her arms crossed. What was the point in doing extraordinary work if it went unrecognised? Uncelebrated?

She’d may as well quit her job to go work in a fucking furniture shop. 

“Maybe some smaller projects will do you good, hm? I think that head of yours has gotten too big,” Konstantin chastised with a pointed finger. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry for making you very successful.”

And before her uncle could continue to berate her for being effortlessly talented, Villanelle’s phone sprang to life, vibrating across the glass table with a loud rumble. She rolled her eyes at the sight of the familiar Paris number that still hadn’t learned to take a hint.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” her uncle asked with an arched eyebrow, thirty seconds into the ceaseless ringing. 

Villanelle silenced her phone and tossed it into the blue and yellow Loewe rugby tote at her feet with an impatient sigh. 

“Nope.”

**//**

Eve groaned and rubbed her forehead, frowning at her computer screen with her head between her hands. 

A migraine drilled at her temples, her hangover in full bloom despite a double dose of ibuprofen and two gallons of water.

She was never letting Elena order her drinks again.

“You’re going to give yourself wrinkles if you keep squinting like that,” Bill’s voice called from her office door, and Eve looked up to find him leaning against the threshold with a knowing smile.

“Like yours, you mean?”

“Piss off,” he scoffed, stepping into the small space. “Lost your glasses again?”

“They’re under here somewhere.” Eve gestured to the chaos that surrounded her with an indifferent shrug. She’d given up on finding anything on her desk long ago.

Bill peered over the mountain of paper with his hands on his hips before exploratorily lifting the corner of a manila folder with the tip of his finger. He retrieved the pair of black frames hidden underneath and held them out, smirking.

“God, I love you,” Eve gushed with a fond smile. She slipped the glasses over her nose and behind her ears, sighing when the words on her screen came into focus.

Bill dropped into the rolling guest chair across from Eve and considered her with coy, twinkling eyes, the fingertips of his left hand drumming against those of his right.

He had news.

“What’s up?” Eve asked, giving her old friend her full attention. 

“Carolyn Martens is retiring.”

Eve gawked.  _ That  _ was not what she had been expecting.

Carolyn had been The Journal’s Editor-in-Chief for the majority of Eve’s 20-year career.

Carolyn was her mentor. Her first editor when Eve was hired as a staff writer on the Politics beat just out of university. She’d even indulged Eve’s strange fascination with murder and granted Eve’s transfer to Crimes — where Eve truly came into her own — shortly after Carolyn had taken over The Journal. 

Then, after nine years of loving the grind, of making a name for herself as a journalist, a storyteller, in the small but mighty Crimes unit, Carolyn had called Eve into her office to sit her down and tell her that she was making her Managing Editor.

And Eve had been over the moon at the time. 

But in the end, her promotion had been bittersweet. 

She had more influence, yes. She earned a bigger paycheque, yes. 

But she’d given up what she loved the most about her career in return, and five years later, Eve wasn’t sure she would have accepted Carolyn’s offer if she had the chance to do things over again.

She didn’t hate it. It just wasn’t the same.

“Do you know who’s taking over?”

“Well, I’ve only heard whispers, but I don’t think anything’s been set in stone.”

“Go on, then,” Eve prompted, gesturing for him to spill it. She knew he was bursting.

“Frank’s name has come up in conversation.”

Eve rolled her eyes. 

She would gladly see anyone  _ but  _ that brownnosing asshole get the job.

“Jess has been mentioned, as well, but she’s still a few years away if you ask me.”

Eve hummed in agreement.

“And then there’s you.” 

Bill’s grin was roguish, his big, dark eyes twinkling.

“Right.” Eve laughed humourlessly and her friend rewarded her with a disapproving glare.

“Carolyn respects you. Your work is exceptional,” Bill defended as he counted her merits on his fingers. “You’re just about the only person in this bloody building that can give her work ethic a run for its money.”

Eve smiled despite herself. Carolyn had certainly had an influence on her dedication to the job in the two decades they’d worked side by side. 

The woman lived and breathed The Journal. It was impossible for that to not have rubbed off on Eve somewhere along the way.

Still, Editor-in-Chief was something she wasn’t sure she was ready for. Wasn’t sure she would even  _ want  _ the job if it was offered.

“I just —” Eve struggled to articulate herself. She gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t know.”

Bill leaned forward in his chair to place a hand over Eve’s, his face soft and warm. 

“Darling, I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more than you.”

Eve swiped at an itch behind her ear with a thin smile. 

“You have time to think about it,” Bill added, reading her jumbled thoughts with an affectionate pat on the hand. “Her retirement is only being formally announced in the new year.”

Eve put her head in her hands and sighed. Her stomach gurgled, angry and squeamish, her hangover continuing its rage over her tired body.

She was going to be absolutely useless for the rest of the day.

“Elena is going to send me to an early grave.”

Bill snickered and rose from his chair with a clap to his knees. 

“How about some lunch, then?”

“Fuck yes.” Eve stepped from around her desk and rubbed her tired eyes. “I need chips.” 

“Chips it is,” Bill smiled as he helped her into her navy trenchcoat. 

They were in the elevator, on their way to a favourite fish and chips haunt around the block when her colleague looked over at her, waggling his caterpillar eyebrows.

“So, tell me about your hot date last week.”

“Oh god,” Eve groaned with her face in her hands. “I promise, there is  _ nothing _ to tell.”

Bill smirked.

“That’s not what Elena told me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get at me on twitter @emdash_90


	4. Grandma's Sweater

“What about this one?”

Villanelle bit back a laugh as Eve reached across the desk for a repugnant, powder blue paint chip that was more of a taste test than an actual viable design option. 

And so far? Villanelle’s newest client was failing spectacularly, and she couldn’t tell if she found the entire thing adorable or horrifying. 

Maybe a mix of both. 

Adorably horrifying.

“Where did my uncle find you?”

“Why?” Eve huffed with an indignant shrug from the other side of Villanelle’s desk. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“Eve, this colour is called Grandma’s Sweater.”

“Oh.”

Villanelle couldn’t help her chuckle as she caught Eve’s self-deprecating eye roll, the sheepish scratch at her neck.

Yeah. It was definitely both.

“So, you like blues, then?” Villanelle asked with her fingers rubbing circles over her temples, doing her best to get a gauge on her client. 

They were meeting at Villanelle’s office as a follow-up to their initial consultation days prior. Now that Villanelle had seen the space she would bring to life over the next couple of months, she needed to learn more about Eve’s tastes; what colours, fabrics, patterns she liked, and what she didn’t.

“I guess blues are alright?”

Villanelle groaned.

Twenty-five minutes in, and Eve wasn’t giving her much to work with.

“I’m sorry!” Eve laughed, crumpled against the velvet back of the grey, brass-framed swivel chair. Villanelle’s eyes followed the hand lost in deep brown, windswept curls, and she wondered how a head of hair could have a mind, an energy, a gravitational pull of its own. “I’ve never given these things much thought.”

“You have never thought about what colours you like?”

This, Villanelle could not believe.

Colour was everything, everywhere. Constant. Infallible. Unavoidable.

It was as subtle as it was loud, as defining as it was vivid.

It spoke through silence, quieted only by darkness and the absence of light. And even then, you had to work hard to not see it. 

How could Eve not see it?

Her client shrugged, shoulders to ears, pulling at the ends of soft grey sleeves, and Villanelle wondered if Eve had always been this way. If she had always been scattered and disorganised. If she had always been so apathetic to the world she built around herself, or if this Eve was a product of her surroundings, of a series of events that had done nothing but bury the Eve she used to be. 

Villanelle sat up in her chair, hands resting on the edge of her desk before a sea of paint samples. 

She needed a different approach.

"You are a writer, yes?" 

"Less so now, but sure."

Villanelle rolled her eyes. She would get to the bottom of why the woman was so at odds with calling herself a writer. But first, she had a point to make.

"So if you write a story, would you tell me that the words do not matter? That you can use anything to get your point across?"

"Well, of course not." Eve frowned as though it was obvious. "Words are everything."

"Exactly," Villanelle stressed, snapping her fingers. "It's the same thing with design. It's like writing a story in your home, but instead of words, I use colour and pattern and texture. Every choice has to be intentional. Everything has to mean something to you. That’s what makes it your home and not just an office away from your office."

Eve mulled the idea with a faint smile.

"I guess I never thought of it that way."

Villanelle grinned at her from across the table. That had to be progress. 

“Let’s move away from colours for a minute. What about aesthetics? Are you drawn to any particular styles?”

“You mean like rustic, mid-century, industrial, that sort of thing?” Eve asked, and Villanelle brightened. 

“Exactly like that.”

“Would you kill me if I said I didn’t know?” Eve responded with a mirthful grimace, one eye scrunched shut.

No. 

But Villanelle couldn’t say she wasn’t getting close.

She considered Eve with her lips pursed in thought, tapping the thin cardstock of a teal sample against the glass tabletop. 

“Eve, why did you hire a designer if you don’t care about any of these things?”

Villanelle was a patient woman. 

She — 

Well, okay, that wasn’t true. 

Regardless, she had always been willing to put in the work and dig for what her clients wanted and deliver something she knew they would love. It’s what made her so great at her job. 

But it was a two-way street, and Eve seemed to be on another road entirely. 

“It’s not that I don’t care,” Eve defended, shifting in her seat, crossing a leg over the other. “I just haven’t had the mental space to give it much thought.” 

“Because you are always working.”

“I— ” Eve hesitated. “How do you know that?” 

“Oh, I am very observant,” Villanelle smirked, drumming her finger against her chin. That, and Eve had already interrupted their conversation three times to silence incoming calls from her subordinates. “But you still have not answered my question.”

“Honestly?”

Villanelle waved her hands in front of her, offering Eve the floor. 

“Please.”

“I want a change. I do,” Eve admitted as she leaned forward, her dark, cynical eyes conceding to something Villanelle couldn’t see. “I guess I haven’t felt like myself for a long time, like I haven’t been my own person for a long time.” She shrugged. “Now that the divorce is final—” Villanelle arched an eyebrow — “I feel like I can finally get back to finding out who I am and what I want.”

“You were married?”

Eve rolled her eyes, grinning. 

“ _That’s_ what you took from all that?”

Yes.

“Of course not,” Villanelle tsked, crossing her arms with a dismissive shake of the head. 

“Why? Because it’s hard to believe someone would want to marry this?” Eve teased, her face painted with a smugness that tugged at the corners of Villanelle’s lips.

"No," she quipped without hesitation. "It's hard to believe that someone could trick you into marrying them." But she was getting off track. "This was very useful information, Eve. Thank you."

"That I'm divorced?"

"That you're _redefining_ yourself. And I can help you figure it out."

"Yeah? An interior designer can do all that?"

"I am very good at helping people figure out what they want," Villanelle answered, enjoying the hint of pink that ghosted over Eve's cheeks. "You'll see."

She shuffled through the mountain of paint chips, of varying shades of every colour imaginable to find the perfect fit.

"If we are redesigning your life, we need less early bird special and more thriving, independent woman."

"Does that mean we're ditching Grandma's Sweater?"

"Yep." Villanelle plucked the pale blue card from Eve's fingers, tossing it somewhere behind her before handing her something with more character, more elegance. More Eve. "What about this one?"

Eve hummed in thought as she examined the dramatic elderberry jewel tone with interest. 

"I kinda like it." She held up the sample between her thumb and forefinger with a question on her face. "What's this one called?"

Villanelle smirked, leaning forward to rest her chin on steepled fingers, eyes wicked. 

"Sexy Divorcée."

**//**

“Ready for your hot date?” 

Elena poked her head in Eve’s office as she tucked her laptop into her beat up, brown leather messenger bag, ready to call it quits for the weekend. 

Or at least until the following morning. She had deadlines to meet.

Eve glanced up from her bag to narrow her eyes at her cheery friend.

“Please log out of my Tinder account.”

“And miss out on all the _quality_ attempts at flirting from the people of London? Not bloody likely.” Elena grinned, her tongue behind her teeth, head bobbing giddily. “But _Claire_ seems promising. Very high cheekbones,” she added with an approving nod. “Are we dating gingers, though?”

“ _We_ aren’t dating anyone,” Eve chided, turning Elena by the shoulders to guide her out of her office and across their empty department floor. It was well past five, and almost everyone had taken their leave for the weekend. “ _I_ am meeting a new friend for drinks and _you_ are going home to your boyfriend.”

“You never let me have any fun,” her friend pouted, leaning against the wall as Eve called for the elevator. A rolling chime jingled from both of their phones, and Elena was the first to pull her device from her camel trench pocket. “ _Ooh,_ who is Gabrielle? She’s gorg.”

Eve swiped away the Tinder match notification from her own phone and looked toward the ceiling before entering the lift. 

“I think you’re the one that’s having all the fun,” she grumbled and Elena looped an arm through hers, her head resting against Eve’s shoulder with wide, innocent eyes.

“You love me.” She reached up to poke Eve in the cheek. “And I’m just looking out for you, babe.”

They exited the building and ducked into the fall evening light arm-in-arm, huddled together as they headed for the Tube. With a promise to share the dirty details over dinner the following evening, they parted ways on the platform as Elena boarded the northbound train while Eve was due south. 

“Enjoy your date, sweets!” Elena shouted before the doors could close. “Ditch the grandma sweater and wear something sexy!”

**//**

The thing was — Eve wasn’t even sure she _owned_ anything sexy.

Maybe at some point — in another life. Back in the early days of marriage when she still gave enough of a damn to dress up for her husband, before she started to dress for comfort and function rather than style and sex appeal. Though that did little to steer Niko away.

When her closet refused to do her any favours, she began tearing through old boxes to find something, _anything_ that wasn’t just a ‘nice enough top’ and a pair of jeans.

In the end, Eve ditched her favourite grey turtleneck for the sapphire number she’d dug out of storage, her fluffed, voluminous curls, and the black booties she hadn’t seen in ages.

But had it all been worth it?

Well.

That was another story altogether.

Eve let out a loud sigh in the dark stall where she’d taken refuge atop the lid of a toilet to revel in the quiet with her head in her hands.

Claire was nice.

She was _nice._

Was she nice?

Honestly, it was hard to tell when the woman barely spoke three whole sentences in the 30 minutes since they’d met in front of an art déco-themed wine bar close to her house. 

After her disastrous dinner with Colin the Creep, Eve thought drinks seemed like a nice way to get to know someone without committing to a two-hour service should things go awry. 

And so far, things were going awry.

Eve had been polite. Charming. She had made conversation. Asked questions.

But nothing. Eve got nothing but shy, awkward responses in return and nothing else.

Her Friday night would have been better spent catching up on the work that had piled up at the tail end of the week, and she’d wasted her outfit on a mute stranger she’d never see again.

Eve put on a brave face and stepped into the red and purple light of the women’s room, past the sofa and gold-framed coffee table to the ornate sinks and back-lit mirrors.

She wondered if Villanelle would like this place. If she would light up over all the intricate design details — the lines, the patterns, the fixtures — or if she would scoff at the overplayed Gatsby décor and complain about the boring lack of creativity.

They hadn’t spent two hours in the same room, and still, Eve knew it would be the latter. 

And she smiled. 

She could _hear_ Villanelle’s embellished, trifled sigh, could _see_ the way the corners of her eyes crinkled when she narrowed them just so. 

But she didn’t need to wait long to be proven right.

“... so fucking unoriginal,” came a disdainful mutter as a woman emerged from a black and gold stall, and Eve did a double-take in the mirror when a familiar face reflected at her through the glass.

“Villanelle?”

The blonde — who, like Eve, had changed out of her designer jumpsuit and into navy sailor pants and silk, monogram print blouse — uncurled her upper lip and beamed.

“Eve?”

Eve wiped her hands on a towel and tossed it into a bin before leaning against the counter with her arms crossed. 

“Are you following me?”

A laugh bubbled from Villanelle, who strode past Eve to wash her hands. 

“Of course I am not following you, Eve,” she grinned with an affectionate roll of her eyes. “I was spying for Konstantin. He wants to pitch the owner a rebrand with a new design.” Villanelle glanced around the powder room and made a face. “And now I see why.”

“Not a fan of the 1920s theme, are you?”

And just like she had expected, Villanelle scoffed as she fixed her twisted ponytail. 

“Nope.” Villanelle scratched at the corner of her lip, before spinning, quickly, suddenly, to Eve, who did her best to fight the blush that bloomed over her face as the blonde took in her hair, her dress, her shoes with a brow raised in intrigue. “You look nice.”

“I’m giving the sexy divorcée thing a go,” Eve joked, pulling at the skirt of her outfit. 

Villanelle hummed in appreciation.

“It’s working.”

“I’m a fast learner.”

Their silly grinning went interrupted by a woman entering the ladies room, and Villanelle considered the door with mischief glittering in her eyes. 

“Are you on a date?”

Oh, god.

“Oh, fuck,” Eve groaned. “I forgot about Claire.”

And Villanelle’s amusement only grew.

“Eve, how can you forget about your date? How long have you been in here?”

Long enough.

“Shut up.” Eve glared before she wiped her face to compose herself. “Okay,” she exhaled, “I guess I should get back to my date.”

“Mm,” Villanelle acknowledged, returning to her reflection when Eve moved to the door. “You would not want to keep _Claire_ waiting.”

With her grip around the ostentatious gold handle, Eve gave Villanelle a final, grim smile.

“See you out there?” she asked with a glimmer of hope. What Eve was hoping for, she wasn’t sure.

Villanelle smirked into the mirror as she dabbed a light pink gloss over her lips.

“You might.”

**//**

“So how long have you lived in London?” 

Eve had kept her fingers crossed on the short walk from the bathroom to the bar, praying that Claire would have left to spare herself the trauma of continuing their date. 

“Erm, about a year and a half.”

But it looked like Claire wanted them both to suffer. 

“How do you like it so far?”

The redhead shrugged with a small, unaffected smile. 

“It’s okay.”

And then nothing. 

No follow-up. No reciprocation. Just awkward silence as they sat, side by side, at the black granite bar in front of gold and glass shelves stocked with hundreds of bottles of liquor. The faint wail of a car alarm could be heard in the distance over moody jazz, and Eve wished she owned a vehicle for someone to thieve. 

It would give her an excuse to leave.

Was Eve bad at this? Was she asking the wrong questions? Saying the wrong things?

Or was she just an embarrassingly terrible judge of character?

Maybe it was the latter. 

It was probably the latter. 

She hoped to god that it was the latter. 

“Beg your pardon, ladies,” a scouse accent interrupted nothing at all, drawing both of their attention to the bartender, and Eve nearly sputtered her sip of merlot all over herself when she found Villanelle standing behind the bar with a tea towel thrown over her shoulder. “Do either of you own a silver Jetta parked out front?”

“That’d be mine,” Claire responded, frowning in confusion. “Is something wrong?” 

Bartender Villanelle feigned a sigh of relief with a hand over her heart. 

“I’m sorry, but I think someone was trying to break into your car? The alarm’s been goin’ off for at least five minutes.” 

“Shit,” Claire cursed as she hopped off the barstool, panicked. “Fuck.” 

Her head whipped between Villanelle, the front door, Eve, and back again like a deer in headlights. Eve tried her best to keep her laugh under wraps and Villanelle threw her a cheeky wink the moment the redhead’s attention was drawn elsewhere.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your evening,” Villanelle raised her hands with a rueful pout. “You should probably go make sure everything’s alright, miss.”

“Of course, of course,” Eve agreed, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. “She should probably go.” She turned back to her date, contrite. “You should probably go.”

“Eve, I’m so sorry,” Claire apologised with a hand on Eve’s arm, shocking her with the use of a complete sentence. “We were having such a lovely time. I’ll be right back?”

“Of _course_ ,” Eve smiled and squeezed her hand. She was going to hell. “I’ll be right here.”

She watched Claire race out of the bar and across the busy West Brompton street before turning to Villanelle, who stepped from behind the bar after tossing her costume — the tea towel — over a bottle of vodka. 

“Liverpool, Villanelle?” Eve asked in disbelief. 

“What?” Villanelle’s innocent grin was infuriatingly welcome as she wrapped herself in a navy robe coat. “I was a very successful drama student in high school.”

Somehow, Eve didn’t doubt that.

“You didn’t really break into her car, did you?”

The blonde shrugged and held out Eve’s jacket as if to help her into it.

“Do you really want to stick around and find out?” 

Eve winced. She really didn’t.

“Fair enough.”

“Let’s go,” Villanelle murmured, guiding Eve through the rear employee exit with a hand on her back. “That dress is too nice to go to waste.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grandma's Sweater is a real ass paint colour. 
> 
> holla at me on Twitter @emdash_90


End file.
